Every Breath You Take: An Indoor Smog Story

Thanks to federal regulations, our outdoor air has half the emissions from harmful gases that it had four decades ago.

Sounds great, right? Except Americans spend around 90 percent of their lives indoors, according to an EPA-funded study.

Read More

Scientists reveal whole new world of chemistry by stepping indoors

An atmospheric chemist had spent her entire career probing the complexities of outdoor air — how gases and particles in the atmosphere move, interact and change, and how human activities perturb the air we breathe. Then, she went inside. It turns out the chemistry inside can be vastly more complex than that of outdoor air systems.

Read More

How to Clear the Air, Literally, in Your Home

In the era of coronavirus and social distancing, we’re all cooped up in our homes, battling anxieties about the invisible dangers in the air. Might as well do something about it, as least as far as the air in your place is concerned.

Read More

3 things to avoid if you want to keep your carpets mold-free

In a study recently published in the journal Building and Environment, a research team from The Ohio State University’s Indoor Environmental Quality Laboratory found that carpets with higher concentrations of dust were more likely to grow mold than those with lower concentrations.

The team also found that fungi burrowed into the fibers of rugs made from natural materials, such as wool. (The mold the researchers found is fungal growth.)

Read More

Opening windows for half an hour is a great way to cut indoor pollution, study finds

Households should open their windows for at least half an hour a day to flush out harmful chemicals produced by cooking, cleaning and smoking – even if there is no smell.

That’s the conclusion of a leading expert on indoor air pollution, who has found that household contaminants linger for much longer and in far greater quantities than had previously thought.

Read More

Opening the window in your home will not flush out the chemicals in the air

The researchers suggest that the reason opening the doors and windows did not reduce chemical levels for more than a few minutes was because the chemicals were clinging to the walls and on surfaces in the home. As concentration levels in the air dropped, the chemicals were immediately replaced by chemicals detaching from these surfaces and floating into the air.

Read More

Cleaning Fumes Linger a Long Time in Your Home — and Cracking a Window Doesn’t Help

The researchers took initial measurements of 19 different airborne chemicals and then threw open the windows. When the breeze was blowing through, concentrations of all chemicals dropped. But when they closed the windows, it took a maximum of about 55 minutes for the chemicals to reappear at basically the same levels.

Read More

Opening your windows doesn’t help reduce indoor air pollution

Airing out our homes might not be as effective as we think. Chemicals released by cleaning or cooking can stick to walls, furnishings and other surfaces instead of wafting out when we open a window. These chemicals are all volatile, meaning they can evaporate into air, but the researchers wanted to see if they can linger on surfaces too.

Read More

Airing Out Your Home Doesn’t Reduce Indoor Air Pollution, Study Finds

Many of the potentially harmful chemicals found in our homes linger on walls and other surfaces, suggests a new study out Wednesday. Unfortunately, ventilating rooms with fresh air or cleaning surfaces might not do much to reduce our exposure to these contaminants.

Read More